ADAPTING THE TEACHING TO THE EUROPEAN SPACE FOR HIGHER EDUCATION: AN EXPERIENCE IN A ENERGY RESOURCES COURSE

Abstract

This work deals with the results obtained in the adaptation to the European Space for Higher Education of an Energy Resources course. This adaptation has been developed progressively in three consecutive academic years. In the first one, the teachers received suitable teaching training and they tried to increase the student motivation, due to the very low ratio of student attending the final evaluation exam respect to the number of students enrolled on the course. The second year was focused on the elaboration of teaching guides and the evaluation of the true student working time. Finally, in the third year, the course was methodologically redesigned and structured in several levels: use of specialized bibliographic material, audiovisual material, small scale prototypes, practical laboratory courses and visits to industrial facilities. The evaluation method was changed to a diversified system based on the different proposed activities and the abilities to be developed. As a result of this progressive adaptation process, a high level of motivation and success rate (89%) were reached. Nevertheless, the application of those new methodologies was found to be restricted to a not very high number of students per group to carry out most of the activities.